Friday

It's 67.8 degrees and gray.

• Friday: Hazy, hot and very humid. Morning fog burning off and becoming partly sunny. Afternoon showers and thunderstorms likely. Some could be strong with extremely heavy rain. High in the mid to upper 80s
• Friday night: Scattered thunderstorms and oppressively humid. Low near 70
• Saturday: Hazy, hot and humid with afternoon thunderstorms. Some could be strong. High: 86, Low: 63
• Sunday: Decreasing clouds and humidity. Becoming mostly sunny. Pleasant. High: 79, Low: 54

According to the O-D website, the thunderstorm that rumbled through, last evening, "left about 4,200 homes without power early Thursday night, according to National Grid's Web site.
More than 2,000 homes sustained power outages in the town of New Hartford. Utica had at least 1,100 without power at about 8 p.m."

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BOOK SALE at the LIBRARY

Today from 10:00 - 5:30
Tomorrow from 9:00 - 12:00.

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Last Saturday was the huge Boy Scout Yard Sale at the Suba residence on Hanover Road. When I pulled into the driveway to take a picture of that activity, there was a purple Smoke Bush, by the front door, and the sunshine made its blossoms look like spun gold.

I had a note from Nicki, a few days ago, saying: "Just wanted to update your readers on the success of our garage sale this past weekend. We had a steady turn out both days so we decided to keep it open for Sunday, which turned out to be slow but steady all day. The sale was a complete success with over half of the merchandise sold. We were surprised at the lack of furniture sold, though. If any of your readers were holding out on either of the table and chairs sets, now is the time to revisit!"


I was invited to visit the Falks, one afternoon, to see a Great Blue Heron that - in distress - had landed in their neighbor's yard the evening before and - apparently - expired at the Falks'. It wasn't good subject material for a photograph, but Kelly and Joe's Hop Vines are magnificent!

This week I remembered: seeing Faith leaving the Farmer's Market in the Park on Wednesday, I stopped and did some shopping and chatting, myself.

Dottie Ruane was there, getting veggies for supper.

A few days ago, I had an E-letter from Dottie's brother, Walter - "Jr." - Bartlett. He said that he'd been visiting the area, last weekend, and had been to Bailey Lake where the mess of litter and garbage was terrible. He urged me to go out and take a picture of it. Unfortunately - or fortunately - I didn't get there until Wednesday afternoon and, by then, it was as clean as I've ever seen it!

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In the mailbox, this morning, another real treat!

A note from Glen Carroll, Vice President, ParTech International, who writes:

"Greetings from Singapore! Just thought I would share that it is nice to keep in contact with home whilst traveling. I shared the link of your blog with my offices in Australia so that they can have a better grasp of the people from the area of the company."

Thanks, Glen!

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Yesterday's game between Boston and Chicago was washed out, so they'll make it up with a double-header, today, starting at 2:05.